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1964: "The Strategy Behind Freedom Summer"

Learn how a new strategy by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) brought student volunteers to aid civil rights workers in Mississippi—as well as national attention to the cause—in this video from American Experience: “1964.” Although civil rights workers had been fighting for years to help register black citizens to vote in Mississippi, the arrival of mostly white college students from the North led to greater media coverage and more awareness throughout the country of oppressive conditions in Mississippi and the struggle for equality. This resource is part of the American Experience Collection.

Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, called Mississippi “a state … sweltering…with the heat of oppression.” Since the Civil War, Mississippi had been the poorest state in the nation. Blacks in Mississippi had long suffered economic hardship, political disenfranchisement, and social injustice, including inadequate housing, unemployment, subpar schooling, and the enforcement of vicious Jim Crow laws. Less than 7 percent of the black population was registered to vote, compared with 50 to 70 percent in other southern states. Any attempts to change the racist status quo were met with intimidation, threats, beatings, imprisonment, and other retaliations—including the murder of black civil rights workers and leaders—often by the Ku Klux Klan, the White Citizens Council, and even the state police. In addition, Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett was a staunch segregationist.

Organized by Bob Moses, field secretary of SNCC, the mission of the Mississippi Summer Project (later known as Freedom Summer) galvanized young people to leave the comfort and security of their home or school to relocate to Mississippi for 10 weeks in 1964. Born in Harlem in 1935, Moses, a graduate of Hamilton College and Harvard University, had been trying to help black citizens register to vote in the South since 1961. Considering the obstacles to equality, Freedom Summer, therefore, was a remarkable accomplishment by more than 700 civil rights volunteers from all over the country—mostly students organized by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)—and civil rights workers already mobilized in the South. Thwarted by a racist system that insisted on impossible literacy tests, poll taxes, and other ploys to keep blacks from voting, Moses and other leaders thought that inviting “outsiders”—especially middle-class white students from northern universities—might not only help bring change, but would also draw media attention to the desperate situation of blacks in Mississippi.

Volunteers for Freedom Summer were screened and trained for a week at Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio, before traveling south. The college students were warned that their work was not to be undertaken lightly. It would be difficult and dangerous. Those in the black communities who helped the volunteers or were working alongside them faced losing their jobs, homes, or businesses. The disappearance on June 21—during the very first week of Freedom Summer—of CORE organizers Michael Schwerner and James Chaney and newly arrived SNCC volunteer Andrew Goodman underscored just what the volunteers were up against. Despite the intervention of the FBI, it took six weeks before their murdered bodies were found. By the end of the summer, there would be at least one more death, countless beatings, over 1,000 arrests, and the burning or bombing of scores of churches, homes, and businesses. Yet the young people persisted, becoming part of the black communities in which they lived, worked, and taught. For many—black and white—it was their first time interacting with people of another color.

In addition to voter registration, Freedom Summer had two other important goals: the establishment of “Freedom Schools” and community centers to increase literacy, combat the lack of education of black Mississippians, teach about black history and culture, and provide legal and medical advice; and the creation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), a predominately black delegation that would challenge the whites-only Mississippi Democratic Party at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, NJ. Many people attended the Freedom Schools, but the MFDP was unable to replace the all-white delegation. Despite a powerfully moving speech by MFDP Vice Chair Fannie Lou Hamer, a former sharecropper, the delegation was denied its place at the convention. It was the end of Freedom Summer, but not the end of the fight for equality.

For its participants, Freedom Summer was a life-changing event. For the country, it was also historic. The spotlight on Mississippi helped solidify and strengthen the growing civil rights movement. The actions of volunteers during the summer of 1964 provided real-life experience in grassroots organizing, local and national politics, and combating the inequalities that plagued the country. Young people brought their idealism and activism back to their college campuses in the fall. Many of the social “movements” of the 1960s—the rise of the Black Power movement; the growth of the antiwar movement; and the fight for women’s rights, gay rights, and the rights of other minorities in America—had their roots in Freedom Summer.

Todd Gitlin, student activist, calls the Freedom Summer strategy “brilliant.” Do you agree or disagree? Why would bringing in volunteers—mostly white college students from the North—make the media pay more attention to what was happening in Mississippi?

In the video, civil rights activist Revered Ed King says, “We had been having one black murdered a month by the Klan just to set an example: there’ll be no voter registration work in this area.” Why was it so difficult for black voters to register in Mississippi prior to 1964? What were the legal and illegal obstacles? What other political, social, and economic conditions did black people experience in Mississippi?

Although SNCC had worked for years in Mississippi to fight for equality, they realized they needed a new strategy. What was the Freedom Summer project supposed to accomplish? What were its goals? Was it a success? Why or why not?

The year 1964 was a pivotal one in American history. As Americans emerged from the trauma of President’s Kennedy assassination, the status quo seemed to be shifting on every front: social, political, and cultural. This video is part of a series of media resources from American Experience: “1964.” Use it on its own or in conjunction with others from “1964” on PBS LearningMedia (see "You Might Also Like") to begin a study of the 1960s or to focus on a specific trend or issue. You may also want to pair this video with the media on PBS LearningMedia from American Experience: “Freedom Summer” and the American Experience film “Freedom Summer.” For further information, see Related Books and Websites.

To help assess students’ knowledge about the civil rights movement and the events of the summer of 1964, create a K-W-L chart. Assign research projects, as needed, to fill in students’ knowledge of the racial issues facing America in 1964.

The Freedom Summer “project” was conceived and run by SNCC—the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Have students research the organization and analyze its name. When was it established? What did its name mean? How did SNCC differ from other groups fighting for civil rights in 1964?